Looking to upgrade my CPU, Memory and Motherboard

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22 Apr 2008
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Hi all.

I'm starting to see my computer struggle against some of the tasks i'm throwing at it. My tasks range from Unreal Engine, Visual Studio C++ compilation, Premiere Pro, 3D modelling, gaming (VR), streaming and music creation. I've also noticed my computer crashing more often with no bsods appearing (my gpu max is 85 degrees c and my CPU max is 70)

I was looking for a hefty upgrade to my:
- now seemingly old CPU
- my motherboard
- and my RAM.
- I suppose it also means I will need a new heatsink and some thermal paste

I wondered what you all thought about my options?

I would be happy to spend £~1500 on all of the components. I am interested in getting 32GB of ram, but can cope with 16GB if it means I get a better CPU or better RAM because of it.

Here are my current rig details:

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Midi Tower Case - Titanium
Memory brand: Corsair Vengance LP 16GB (4x4GB) CML16GX3M4A1600C9 DDR3




 
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Does this look okay? Am i missing any tricks?



Perhaps any thoughts on the RAM? Is it worth it or can i get 32GB at the same price and not really miss out on speed?

Extra question:

When i change over the following items, will my hard drives and SSDs map automatically to their original drive letters or do I need to go and change them back to the drive letter they had before?



I'm going to rip out the Spare (E and (F but would like to keep (D as it's my OneDrive folder.

I think it's SATA so hopefully still is supported by new mobo... but if not, perhaps a recommendation for a hdd too? 512gb should do it.
 
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Do any of the applications you're using benefit specifically from using Intel?

Will you benefit from as many threads as you can throw at said applications?

If you can make use of lots of threads and aren't making use of anything Intel specific I'd consider something such as the following:

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £883.96 (includes shipping: £0.00)​

You could even consider Threadripper for your budget.
 
RE Intel: It's a good question. I am not sure and will have to take a look at that.

AMD ay. hm, that thread ripper does seem to come out really well but is a little too expensive.

The 3950x looks like it ties up well against the i9-9900KS. Albeit its single thread rating coming under very slightly. I think you're right, the extra cores are probably the way to go with the kind of operation I need this for.
Also, how does the 3600mhz ram differ in speed to the 4600mhz. Know any comparison charts worth looking at? I've never really understood how much of a difference it makes.

I'm fine to hit £1500 if you have any more pleasant ideas.

Why do i feel like buying AMD is a mistake? Am i just being a noob? Is there better support for intel vs amd processors?

Also, thank you for including the CPU cooler in that. So you think the be quiet is better than the noctua. Cool. My room can get a bit hot so any extra umph will help.
 
RE Intel: It's a good question. I am not sure and will have to take a look at that.

AMD ay. hm, that thread ripper does seem to come out really well but is a little too expensive.

The 3950x looks like it ties up well against the i9-9900KS. Albeit its single thread rating coming under very slightly. I think you're right, the extra cores are probably the way to go with the kind of operation I need this for.
Also, how does the 3600mhz ram differ in speed to the 4600mhz. Know any comparison charts worth looking at? I've never really understood how much of a difference it makes.

I'm fine to hit £1500 if you have any more pleasant ideas.

Why do i feel like buying AMD is a mistake? Am i just being a noob? Is there better support for intel vs amd processors?

Also, thank you for including the CPU cooler in that. So you think the be quiet is better than the noctua. Cool. My room can get a bit hot so any extra umph will help.

The smart money's on amd these days.
 
@jimmyt1988

slightly under your intel version but higher then @Gray2233 with 16 cores and 2 sticks of ram vs 4 (less strain on IMC) . Increase in Mobo standing - though still aorus with UK RMA and handy rep support on here via Giga-Man


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,223.46 (includes shipping: £10.50)


will absolutely fly at tasks :)
 
I am interested in getting 32GB of ram, but can cope with 16GB if it means I get a better CPU or better RAM because of it.
32GB of memory gives about 10x more bang per buck in those heavy uses than Intel's insanely overpriced more holes than in Swiss cheese architecture CPU.

Intel's "quality" is at this level:
https://youtu.be/FcWllalgUfo?t=2m28s
Just Google for Intel and some of these: Meltdown, Spectre, Spoiler, Fallout, RIDL, Zombieload, Plundervolt, CacheOut
And no doubt we'll see more.

Sure nothing can be fully secure, but Intel clearly stopped giving **** 15 years ago and started "using doping" to surpass AMD.
Whole lots of these vulnerabilities are related to speculative data execution improvements Intel used to increase CPU performance.
And they never bothered to fix all those shortcuts once AMD's Bulldozer aka Faildozer failed and Intel stagnated advance to start milking on same old with minimal improvements.

Intel was definitely the biggest obstacle to advance of PCs in the last decade.
Without AMD we would be no doubt still paying £300+ for 4 core/8 thread CPU and with luck might just get 6c/12t for £500+.


Also, how does the 3600mhz ram differ in speed to the 4600mhz.
4600MHz definitely isn't worth the price even on Intel.
Actually in certain sense Intel is less memory sensitive.

On AMD side 3600MHz is pretty much the optimal.
Ryzen has CPU's internal blocks connected together using bus called InfinityFabric, which is usually synced to memory bus speed.
If IF and memory bus are uncoupled that causes extra ~10ns penalty to memory access time, which hits especially gaming performance.
3600MHz is the highest speed which can be expected from IF of pretty much any Ryzen to do.
3733MHz should be possible for half to majority of CPUs, but 3800MHz needs getting quite lucky on CPU.
Also high core count CPUs you'll want to this kind demanding uses have more load on IF bus, making it harder to push it high.
(might be stable on synthetic memory tests, but real world load stressing CPU would cause instability)
 

£2,001.06 is probably too expensive darnit. It's not that i don't have the money... It's just that... well. It's probably not the best spent money. Thank you so freaking much for putting that together though!

@jimmyt1988

slightly under your intel version but higher then @Gray2233 with 16 cores and 2 sticks of ram vs 4 (less strain on IMC) . Increase in Mobo standing - though still aorus with UK RMA and handy rep support on here via Giga-Man


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,223.46 (includes shipping: £10.50)


will absolutely fly at tasks :)

This bowl of porridge tastes just right I think.

I've been investigating AMD, you guys are right. Intel may introduce something May, but then it may still be half a year until they release it (and that's all a maybe). I was thinking about why I was feeling anxious about AMD. My thoughts were that I'm not sure how long AMD will remain in the lead. But i think my justification for going the AMD route anyway is that i haven't upgraded for 8 years, and I probably won't this time either unless quantum computers comes about... So upgrading to a new CPU that fits the same motherboard is probably not going to happen... So may as well go for the best now.

I still am unsure of the single thread power, but they are both insanely fast anyway, i'm really just bending over to my bias now... so i should probably stop doing that.

Dudes. thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

insanely overpriced more holes than in Swiss cheese architecture CPU.

Lol, wow. Intel aren't a person to hate. They are a company, filled with thousands of happy/sad employees going about their lives. They create fantastic products. Haha. seems harsh don't you think :) - No judgement here though, just thought i'd make note. Your arguments seem a little heavy on the right. hehe. :)

Thank you all. I am very tempted to hit the buy button on cart number 2. I'll tell you how it goes!
 
On AMD side 3600MHz is pretty much the optimal.
Ryzen has CPU's internal blocks connected together using bus called InfinityFabric, which is usually synced to memory bus speed.
If IF and memory bus are uncoupled that causes extra ~10ns penalty to memory access time, which hits especially gaming performance.
3600MHz is the highest speed which can be expected from IF of pretty much any Ryzen to do.
3733MHz should be possible for half to majority of CPUs, but 3800MHz needs getting quite lucky on CPU.
Also high core count CPUs you'll want to this kind demanding uses have more load on IF bus, making it harder to push it high.
(might be stable on synthetic memory tests, but real world load stressing CPU would cause instability)

Thanks for the information. Got any sources? Cheers man. Awesome info.
 
£2,001.06 is probably too expensive darnit. It's not that i don't have the money... It's just that... well. It's probably not the best spent money.

I think you qualify for free shipping. That will push it under £2000. And there are cheaper TRX40 motherboards - you can save yourself £140.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £411.08 (includes shipping: £11.10)​

Actually, on a re-read, the motherboard I originally listed won't fit in your case being EATX. D'oh. Anyway, you're down to under £1900....
 
They create fantastic products.
Actually Intel hasn't created much anything in last five years.
Since 2015 they've been rebranding same 6th gen Skylake architecture.
And they're now bringing third CPU socket for same old architecture, while previous "socket change" was nothing but artificial money grab:
https://www.techpowerup.com/250109/...0-ghz-overclock-on-a-z170-chipset-motherboard
And already before Skylake rebranding Intel switched from soldering heatspreader to using bubblegum/toothpaste under it just to increase profits.

While on AMD side same socket is going to get third CPU architecture.

And might want to familiarize yourself with what Intel's past is.
Intel isn't even grey knight, it's black as soot:
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/intel-and-the-x86-architecture-a-legal-perspective

Intel is still using their certainly very dirty and likely semi-illegal tricks to sabotage AMD's performance with compiler making code, which artificially disables extensions when detecting AMD CPU:
https://www.techpowerup.com/261241/...oosts-amd-ryzen-mkl-performance-significantly
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/h...on-2175W-Python-numpy---MKL-vs-OpenBLAS-1560/

Also web server costs have been excarberated because of Intel charging ludicrous profit margins from hardware.
Web hosting providers have even had to buy lots of extra hardware to compensate for performance losses from vulnerability patches!

If laws applying to normal persons were applied to corporations, Intel's top management should have been stripped naked and penniless and thrown to medieval dungeon long time ago.
Just think how much better PCs we would all have had for years, if AMD hadn't suffered from all those dirty and illegal tricks and there had been true competition most of the time.
Also games using properly more than couple cores would have been norm for long time.
 
£2,001.06 is probably too expensive darnit. It's not that i don't have the money... It's just that... well. It's probably not the best spent money. Thank you so freaking much for putting that together though!



This bowl of porridge tastes just right I think.

I've been investigating AMD, you guys are right. Intel may introduce something May, but then it may still be half a year until they release it (and that's all a maybe). I was thinking about why I was feeling anxious about AMD. My thoughts were that I'm not sure how long AMD will remain in the lead. But i think my justification for going the AMD route anyway is that i haven't upgraded for 8 years, and I probably won't this time either unless quantum computers comes about... So upgrading to a new CPU that fits the same motherboard is probably not going to happen... So may as well go for the best now.

I still am unsure of the single thread power, but they are both insanely fast anyway, i'm really just bending over to my bias now... so i should probably stop doing that.

Dudes. thank you so much. I really appreciate it.



Lol, wow. Intel aren't a person to hate. They are a company, filled with thousands of happy/sad employees going about their lives. They create fantastic products. Haha. seems harsh don't you think :) - No judgement here though, just thought i'd make note. Your arguments seem a little heavy on the right. hehe. :)

Thank you all. I am very tempted to hit the buy button on cart number 2. I'll tell you how it goes!

AMD Zen2 or Ryzen 3*** is strong now with single core or Dual core performance - and will set to improve with Micro codes AMD release to update the chips runnings .

as @EsaT has mentioned ( and well regarded on here - PSU god ) Ryzen is the better pick! specially there Intel Ripper CPUS!
Intel will still hold the League for Esports ! specially if your a semi Pro and need to power 1080p 300hz plus monitor or 1440p 240hz with the lowest possible Min frame rate !- which you're not gunning for.

and just to highlight on AMD AND Esat point of the strength of current Gen AMD. They have finally beaten Intel at 4D Mapping ! From below you could see Intels 8 core hammering older 24 core Thread Ripper and 8 core Ryzen but thats now a thing of the past . (oh and 4D Mapping takes usually a few days to finish one job )

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...ore-X-10000-vs-AMD-Threadripper-3rd-Gen-1624/

lowest is could get TR4 24 Cores- need quad channel set up so 4 sticks of 8GB


ODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,821.04 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
 
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Just wanted to inform you that i'm considering waiting until next month to get the extra money buffer for the thread ripper. You people!!! - Making me want stupidly expensive equipment heheh (i love you so much) hahaha. I will write back when i've made my decision. Thanks as always.
 
Just wanted to inform you that i'm considering waiting until next month to get the extra money buffer for the thread ripper. You people!!! - Making me want stupidly expensive equipment heheh (i love you so much) hahaha. I will write back when i've made my decision. Thanks as always.

If you liking the mobo, nice time to grab and sale price will go away . Unless your able to track down else where etc .

Worth researching in coolers as well

Viper ram also at nice sale price
 
Just wanted to inform you that i'm considering waiting until next month to get the extra money buffer for the thread ripper.

It's possible that the imminent release of the 3990x Threadripper will see the release of TRX80 or WRX80 motherboards with a concommitant reduction in price of TRX40 motherboards. Though I note @Gibbo is advertising the 3990x but not the TRX80 or WRX80.
 
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